When Sheryl, Greg and I went to see Chixdiggit back at the end of August, little did we know that we'd become fans of the opening band, of whom we knew nothing. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much. After all, four girls from Halifax probably sound the same as every other well known Halifax band right? You know, strummy guitars and lame wispy vocals about boys or whatever. Were we surprised. Plumtree played a set of tight pop music with lyrics that were anything but ordinary, and yet that is the very thing they sing the most about: the ordinary. We were impressed enough after their set to want to interview them.

Later that evening I walked up to bassist Amanda and asked if they were free the next evening. Much to my delight they were and we arranged to meet early in the evening to discuss all things Plumtree.

All four girls are friendly and intelligent. Singer/guitarist Carla Gillis (CG) talked the most, giving me the impression that she's the leader of the band. Her sister Lynette (L), who drums for the group, has a dry sense of humour. She also has a sexy speaking voice that helps disguise her status as the youngest member of Plumtree. Amanda Braden (A), who also sings lead vocals and plays guitar is the quiet one, who, when she does speak, says what's on her mind, even though she may express reservation in saying it. Finally, new member Catriona Sturton (CS) (who replaces Nina Martin on bass) came across as the joker of the band. Apparently she's also a damn fine harmonica player.

Last night you were playing with the Wheat Chiefs and Chixdiggit. Do you consider yourself Punk?

CG: No. We really like Chixdiggit a lot, and our music's compatible just because it's fun and pretty energetic, but I think they're considered pop-punk, and I don't think we have much of a punk aspect anyway.

CS: We're basically a shakin' rock n' roll band.

And you don't see yourselves as part of "cuddlecore" or anything like that.

A: We've gotten that label a few times. I don't like the title. Like Cub; it seems it's like a label they're actually trying for. I don't know. Maybe I'll get in trouble for that.

L: The way they look in pictures, the way they come across the things they do...in the bathtub, and rubber duckies...y'know.

A: I don't want to cause controversy. I don't see ourselves that much as "cuddlecore", I think it's just the fact that we're young and female.

L: A lot of young bands just get (labelled) "cute" because they're young. There's two categories. Every girl band I can think of; they're either called "riot grrrls" or "cute girls". Always. It doesn't really feel like we're either but I guess if we had to be one, I would say cute before I would say riot grrrls.

A: But we're not really either.

CG: We don't really like the label. Just because the images I conjure up are not ones... Like I don't feel really cute every day. I think we know how to play our instruments. I think we know how to write okay songs and I think that should have more to do with it than what we look like. If you listen to some of our lyrics....what would you say....they're not about daisies. They're not about flowers and happiness. There's a song Amanda sings called "3:30 on Hill" and she sings it really sweetly and it sounds really melodic and nice but there's one line - "And I'll break your neck"...

A: We just don't think about it basically. We don't try.

We hear about a lot of bands from Halifax, and here in Toronto, there's a lot of bands. Do you get the feeling that maybe there are too many bands?

CG: In Halifax?

When I say the Halifax scene, I don't mean the Jale/Sloan things. There's certain cities like Vancouver & Montreal, where you hear they don't have much of a band scene period because there aren't a lot of places to play. You get the odd one or two bands from Calgary, and maybe a band from Winnipeg. You don't hear about bands otherwise. Whereas there are a lot of bands in Toronto, and it appears like there are a lot of bands in Halifax. Next to Toronto, it seems like all the (Canadian) bands come from Halifax.

CG: I thought you just meant Sloan/Superfriendz kind of bands, but there are so many good bands in Halifax that nobody's going to hear because they maybe only play all ages shows or they don't any sort of attention or credit at all. They just keep playing. There's this one all ages club, I think it's the longest running all ages club in Canada, it's been running for four years, and bands play there all the time and it's where almost everybody has started out. It's a really great club, as a starting block or whatever. So many bands play there they have shows twice a week, every weekend. So yeah, there are tons of bands, but it's not a bad thing at all.

Have you been touring all summer?

L: Yeah. It was pretty much from when I got out of school. They (Carla, Cat, Amanda) were out two months before we left.

CS: We saw the prairies for the first time.

CG: We had never been out west. The farthest was Windsor, Ontario or something. We went out for five weeks last summer and that's as far as we went. So (this year) we got to go out west. We played two shows in the states; in Buffalo, and in Missoula, Montana.

CS: Missoula was the craziest place. We played with a band called the Wild Chickens. It was the drunkest show we ever played.

L: We were so out of it. I kept falling off my stool.

There's one song on the tape that really intrigued me -"Hey Whiskers".

L: It's about going to a party...

A: ...and not having anyone talk to you, and not really wanting to so you're playing with their cats. That's happened to me before, where you sort of form a bond with their pets.

It's weird, because you hear it and you feel this wave of sympathy but at the same time it's kind of pathetic because you're identifying with the cat not being fed.

A: I think everybody feels like that sometime.

I've noticed a few times tonight you've said "Well, the tape's really old", "the single's really old". How do you think you've grown?

CG: I don't know how much you can tell by the tape, but when we first started, we all came from different places musically and our songs were a mess. They were really disjointed. We wanted to make sure we didn't write simple songs on purpose. We had these insanely structured songs that would change key and change time five different times in the song. It was all over the place It was kind of a mess. It didn't always work. I don't think it's completely gone now but I think we can just let it sort of wander. We have to write better lyrics.

But that's what makes it work for me, because they're so real. Basically, everybody's life is the same and everybody thinks that everybody else is more interesting than they are and that's what I'm getting out of your lyrics. You're saying "so what, we're onstage but we get lonely at parties too".

CG: Well, people will sometimes do interviews with us and they'll say "well you must have been pretty popular in high school because you've got a CD out" and nobody really cares. You still feel pretty average. You're playing onstage but it's just a hobby that you chose over, maybe, swimming. It's not that your doing anything amazing, it's just different. You can get pretty far just starting a band and doing stuff yourself. Figuring it all out yourself and not having a lot of money behind you, you can still do stuff. It just feels like a hobby that we enjoy doing, so we just treat it like that. When we play shows, and when we write songs, we still sing about normal stuff.

What happens now. Is it just a hobby? Are you all going to the same school after high school? Are going to go to separate schools and just do this in the summer?

CG: Our old bass player (Nina Martin) went away to university after she graduated so we had to get a new one. We could have stopped the band, but it is important and it's more than just a hobby. It's really time consuming and really, really fun and it's something that we all don't want to stop doing at this point in our life. Lynette was still in high school when I graduated, and she was still going to be in high school for two years, and I just started university. I'm going into my third year, and (Amanda & Catriona) are going into their second and Lynette's going to start at the art college in Halifax.

L: We'll try to balance things if we can, so we'll always be in school and doing the band. If it gets to be hard we'll deal with it, but we'll probably take some time off school just to see how it goes.

CS: We all think school's important, but I think it's really good for you to do school and something else. It helps you in knowing how to balance things. This year what we're going to do is take two weeks off in the fall and tour. We all have Fridays off so we can go away on weekends and play shows.

CG: We all plan our university schedules so we can have records out (laughing).